Travel and Leisure readers ranked 35 metropolitan areas total, based on factors like overall cleanliness, smoking in public areas, and littering.

As for Baltimore, readers are pointing to the city's "army of cats" and an uptick in complaints about rats roaming the streets.

City officials on Wednesday said people's behavior is to blame.

"We need to help each and every constituent to not throw things in the sewers, to make sure their trash is put out properly and correctly, and we'll have a clean city. I mean, when we were growing up, we had to sweep the front and the back of our homes. Think if everybody in the city did that, what kind of city we would have? And rats would probably be moving somewhere else," City Council President Jack Young said.

Baltimore was ranked sixth dirtiest city last year.

The magazine said the city's higher ranking this year is likely because of the growing rat problem.